About Michele Bonds
Michele Bonds is a contemporary artist working in sculptural carved paper.
Her practice centers on layered paper constructions and hand-cut surfaces that explore pressure, structure, and transformation through abstract form.
Before working in carved paper, Michele worked inside highly structured professional environments where precision, discipline, and clarity were the baseline.
Those years shaped how she reads systems, how she understands pressure, and how underlying structures reveal themselves over time.
Her studio practice is a direct continuation of that training. The layers are now literal, the excavation physical, but the inquiry remains the same.
Artist Statement
I create sculptural works in carved and layered paper that explore transformation as an ongoing state. I use excavation as a way to surface the tensions, histories, and connective structures that shape human experience.
Each work is constructed from meticulously layered and pressed papers, then carved with specialized tools that allow me to cut through dense strata of material. This process exposes interior color, texture, and depth, producing complex surfaces that can resemble geological formations, anatomical architectures, or cosmological fields. The physicality of carving and the precision required to navigate the layers form the core of my studio methodology.
My work centers on questions of identity, evolution, and perception. I examine what becomes visible when the interior is revealed, how fragmentation can become a site of coherence, and how abstraction can function as a psychological mirror. These pieces invite sustained viewing and shift with the light, the season, and the emotional state of the observer.
In series such as Cracks in the Temple, Crucible, Ashes and Shades of Grey, I work with ideas of ancestry, transformation, and the ongoing dialogue between structure and surrender. The works often function as vessels for the histories we carry and the ones we are still shaping. Each piece holds both rigor and intuition and offers a material language for the complexities of becoming.
Biography
Michele’s path into the studio was shaped by both curiosity and discipline. She spent years working in law, finance, and executive search, moving through environments defined by high stakes, long horizons, and complex decision making. Those experiences developed a strong sense of structure and clarity and revealed how pressure shapes behavior, meaning, and change over time.
Art emerged as a place where those observations could take material form. What began as a personal investigation evolved into a sculptural practice grounded in layered paper, precision carving, and the study of interior landscapes. The work developed gradually, piece by piece and series by series, until it became clear that this was not a departure from earlier work, but a deeper expression of it.
Today her practice brings those threads together. She continues to build work that requires patience, steadiness, and a willingness to sit with complexity, while allowing intuition to guide the final direction. The result is an evolving body of sculptural paper works shaped by the same commitments that defined her earlier career. The work is guided by clarity, integrity, and sustained attention to what lies beneath the surface.
Selected Exhibitions & Highlights
Michele’s work has been shown at Art Fair 14C, The Superfair, and multiple New York area venues including 14C Gallery, The Art Students League and the 92nd Street Y. In 2025, she spoke at Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, presenting on the making of Cracks in the Temple and the role of transformation in creative practice.
She is currently a resident artist at 14C Arts in Jersey City, where she continues to develop the Cracks in the Temple, Crucible, Ashes and Shades of Grey series while expanding into new methodologies and formats.
Talks
Harvard Divinity School, Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, “The Making of Cracks in the Temple”
Grants & Honors
New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant (administered by Mid-Atlantic Arts)
Fairs
The Superfair; Brooklyn, NY; Austin, TX; San Francisco, CA
Art Fair 14C, Jersey City, NJ
Exhibitions
Art (Official) Intelligence, 14C Gallery, New Jersey
BQE: An Iconography of Queens, LIC Artists, Long Island City
Student Salon Exhibitions, The Art Students League, New York
100 Small Works of Hope, We Create NYC
Art Center Student Exhibition, 92nd Street Y, New York
Curriculum Vitae
For studio visits, commissions, or collector inquiries.
